Child in all day detention for something they didn't do.

[rooby252]

Hi,
I'm just trying to see if this is common practice in secondary schools really.
One of my children was kept in an all day detention for 1.5 days for something that happened after school and he wasn't responsible for.
He was at a bus stop with a few other children from his year group (year 8) and another boy threw a plastic bottle on to the floor. It bounced off the floor. It didn't hit anyone or anything and didn't break.
A teacher apparently saw the incident and saw my son wasn't involved, but the school kept the 4 children in detention for 1.5 days- knowing exactly who had thrown the bottle- waiting to see if the boy responsible would own up.
They missed out on all lessons, just doing work they had already done in year 7.
I feel really angry about it but am thinking this might just be how school do things these days?

Nearly every post is the op is not getting the full story 👍🏼

I notice the OP has not returned. Possibly now knowing what really happened, not the version told by her DS.

OP you sound like exactly the kindof nightmare parent that stops people wanting to teach tbh. C'mon! You know that your kids aren't really getting detentions for nothing. You need to work with the school and call your kids out on their bullcrap otherwise they're heading down a dark path.

This said maybe I'm naive (no kids in secondary school yet) but if my child was being put in isolation for a whole day I would expect at least a letter to be sent home explaining why so that I wasn't having to play guessing games and rely on the accounts of a 12 year old. For example the letter might say 'X and his friends were at the bus stop and one of them threw a bottle into the road causing a lorry to swerve. They were all laughing about it and refused to tell me who threw it' or 'we've been having reports all week that X and his friends have been tormenting child Y all week. I saw them pull child Y's drink bottle out of their bag and throw their drink on the floor. Child Y was incredibly upset and we can't tolerate this bullying behaviour' In both these cases I'd immediately see where the teacher was coming from.

Being isolated really isn't something that the school should or can do lightly and I'm really surprised you haven't been given more context tbh

Omg, yesterday the consensus was a child can't miss two days of primary school for a family party abroad

Today it's fine that a kid misses two days of secondary as a mass punishment just to teach them a lesson and they probably deserve it

Thanks for all of your responses.
I spoke to the head of year and it turns out that a teacher had seen what had happened but from a distance so wasn't 100% sure who out of the group had thrown the bottle. He said they had a strong idea which boy it was from the start.
He said the comment about knowing it wasn't my son was uttered between teachers (rather than directly to my son), but until one of the boys confessed and they had everyone's statements they all needed to be kept in isolation.
He said staff from isolation should have informed us about my son being in isolation and kept us updated, and he would be talking to them to find out why that hadn't happened.

In response to the messages saying wise up and open your eyes- my eyes are quite open thank you! I know my children aren't angels but we've tried our hardest to bring them up to tell the truth and right now that seems to be what they are doing. I hope it continues!

They did not miss two days of secondary school. They were in school doing school work. Work they had already done in Year 7? Worth checking that this was actually the case.

I might venture that if the police are usually outside the school at home time, that there may be very good reasons for a zero tolerance approach.

I also thought it was customary in schools to require a teacher's permission to remove a blazer.

The fly and the looking guilty are indicators of not paying attention.

No wonder so many twenty somethings are struggling with interactions and appropriate work behaviour and expect to be wrapped in cotton wool.

If a teacher witnessed the incident then all 4 boys wouldn’t have been kept in, only the one responsible. The teacher clearly only knows which group of boys the offending item came from.

Is it possible that it’s not the incidents themselves, but your DS’s reaction to the teacher during these incidents? I’ve had situations with students where they’ve done something minor (like moving a chair), and when I say “why are you moving that chair?” they kick off rather than simply answering the question. They’ll get a detention for their attitude, but claim they’re getting a detention for “moving a chair that had something sticky on it.”

Yes, my friend went mad when her ds got a detention for 'looking at the clock'.

According to my dd he did indeed get a detention for looking at a clock. On his phone in the middle of a lesson.

This school sounds awful and the police presence outside, while needed, puts me off too. Sounds a bit scary!

I wouldn't want my children going to this school!

There was a "no excuses" school near me where they were proud how many kids they had in after school detention/isolation for the smallest things.

It really could be for saying "thankyou" in the corridor to someone holding the door as it was silent corridors and "no excuses".

They were proud it was detention for the smallest of things so I could believe the OP might be in one of these schools!

You are officially now my favourite parent 😍

You can imagine the amount of emails we get from parents complaining that Little Tarquin only sipped water / took their blazer off / didn’t have a pen…

And the replies outlining what they actually for detentions for.

I thought our school was bad enough - yours sounds even worse. I think try to move your dc if you possibly can to a school which doesn't punish for minor things. I keep banging on about this, but child development research does not recommend punishment at all for children. The school sounds insane.

Please could posters stop assuming that all teenagers lie. Teenagers in safe environments rarely lie. The statistics from research about teenagers lying reflect how unsafe most environments are. Case in point.

Thank you for that insight- it's helpful to better understand why he was given year 7 work.

Well, presumably someone else did snitch and that's why they eventually told your son they knew he hadn't done it. He could have ended it sooner if he had spoken up. I guess that was the point of the isolation - to get the true story and none of the others would know who 'snitched'.

He didn't miss school. He was in school.

If this is true, perhaps teachers could send home notes on the day the detentions or isolations or any other batshit punishments are for, explaining EXACTLY what they were for. That would be a good idea?

Child development research says that punishments do not work and cause damage. How can children learn and grow in these environments?

Because the teacher is given a list of who is in isolation about 10 minutes before they need the work and has to find something they (and all the other kids from different year groups who are in isolation) can do without actual teaching first.

Good on the school dealing iwth unruly behaviour.
I know it's unfair on those uninvolved being included but what is the option - let it go?

I'd get him to speak to the teachers of the classes he missed to help him get back up to speed.

IME the phrase 'I know my DC is no angel' is often a euphemism for "Deep down I know my DC is an out of control little shit but I don't want to admit it '.

I was well behaved at school and hated it when they would blanket punish everyone for the actions of one person. It's ridiculous and poor behaviour management. How is this still the practice decades later?

My point stands.
6 missed lessons for a thrown bottle is ridiculous.
How can the school deal with anything really serious when this is the punishment level for something minor?

Imagine a parent coming on here saying my dc threw a water bottle on the ground on the path outside our house, it didn’t break, do any damage to anyone or anything.
We have decided to punish him by making him sit revising in his bedroom for all Saturday until 3.30 and Sunday morning, only leaving his room for the toilet and lunch.
AIBU
You'd be slaughtered.

Punishment doesn't work? Perhaps you need to stop viewing it from the perspective of the disruptive child, and start putting yourself in the shoes of the teacher and the rest of the class. It works well for them when the disruption is removed.

Why do they need to miss lessons for this? Why not detention at lunchtime/after school instead? The only justification I can think of for missing lessons would be if they were disrupting lessons in some way. They weren’t.

This!